The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Our Understated Habit of Daydreaming

Last updated on: December 25, 2013 at 8:30 am by Guest Contributor

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Our Understated Habit of Daydreaming 2013-12-25T08:30:02-07:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by Ben Stiller

By Abe Timler

In 2008 holiday audiences were delivered David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Five Christmases later, the Secret Life of Walter Mitty parodies a key scene from Benjamin Button’s reverse aging. Without that scene, it’s unlikely these two title characters would be compared. On the surface, both films are adaptations of short stories (by F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Thurber, respectively); and both stories are highly modernized and relocated from smaller town settings to big cities (New Orleans and New York, respectively). Details are freely rewritten, and hosts of characters from the source materials have been stripped away.

But the two films share a thematic similarity. Benjamin Button, no matter how the details are reworked, is an exploration of how the inevitabilities of life – self-discovery, love, and work – proceed even when a key attribute of existence is reversed, Mitty is the likewise exploration of another reversal – that of reality taking the backseat to compulsive imagination.

Over the opening credits two parallel conflicts are set in motion: Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is seeking romance and facing impending unemployment from Life magazine. We first see the long-unmarried and career-disinterested Walter cautiously making passes via internet dating sites for his new work interest, Cheryl Melhoff, played by Kristen Wiig. Unsuccessful over the internet and hesitant when face to face with Cheryl at work, Mitty’s perception of these conflicts is thrust through the hoops of his escapist imagination. An assortment of fantasies ensue, starring Walter as virile mountain climber and heroic rescuer of her dog from a burning building.

In the face of Walter’s potential layoff from Life Magazine’s photographic publishing department, he imagines himself retaliating in an elevator brawl against the crass acquisition manager, played by Adam Scott. With every elaborate fantasy, Walter’s entertainment value remains high, though his relatability to general audience decreases: unlike most of us who, I’ll wager, live out more active fantasy lives than we’d like to admit, Walter’s don’t remain hidden. Every important character notices and comments “Walter, where do you go?” or “what do you call it when you go off to your faraway places?”

It isn’t until the acquisition manager demands that someone find a famed photographer’s lost negative that Walter snaps into reality, taking off for Greenland, Iceland, and Afghanistan in search of the photographer. And as typical of romantic subplots, his quest draws in the interest and needed practical assistance from Cheryl, setting the two of them up for more. The lockstep conflicts of romance and adventure remain in satisfying balance until the end.

Audiences and critics will miss the point if they are looking for a profound message*. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty* is rather an invitation to savor the overlapping of daydreams with the colorless routine of daily life. And the movie reverses the convention of dreams fueling success (see last summer’s Turbo – a snail winning the Indy 500 – for the latest stale rendition of “if you can dream it, you can do it”): for Mitty, dreams are depicted more realistically as coping mechanisms against failure. Walter’s employment with Life has confined him to a darkroom amidst years’ worth of film, forcing him to witness, in his isolation, the adventurous lives of the photographers. It’s no wonder Walter so easily passes his days through imagination, giving us an uncommon look at dreams as inward reaction rather than stimulation of outward action.

Most of us can relate to this dynamic of daydreaming more than we’d admit. As Walter’s fortunes increase, daydreams decrease until peaking again when difficulties strike. The most subtle take away from Walter’s imagination is the very human need to justify and live out the deep emotions that overtake the commonest of lives. Walter’s travels through space, his impossible adventures, and his glamorizing of equally routine-fatigued female colleagues cannot simply be dismissed as merely private entertainment; like Walter, our mostly ordinary days do not scale down our emotional lives that in intensity we share, though falling short in reality, with history’s greatest visionaries, explorers, and conquerors.

Previous Post

December 25, 2013

Grudge Match Teaches Forgiveness

Next Post

December 27, 2013 In Search of the Greatest Movie Ever Made

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Roman centurion was the first Gentile baptized in Acts?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Cornelius Julius Agrippa Felix